Jane Perrone's organic gardening blog

March 16, 2005

Spud no-show - an answer?

A potential answer to the problem of my pink fir apples potatoes' failure to chit comes in the form of an email from reader James. Apparently the trick is to plunge them into complete darkness, only moving them into the light once buds appear, according to James's neighbour.

That, however, will have to wait a couple of days as I am many miles away from my seed potatoes, working in Manchester this week. The PFAs won't know what's hit them when I get back at the weekend though: I can't bear the thought of a potato-free allotment this year ...

3 Comments

Don't fret, pet! Last year I planted PFAs we'd bought from a farm shop a few weeks earlier (to eat - they were so delicious we kept some tubers back to plant), with no visible sprouts at all and they gave a bumper crop. This year they've got wee stumpy sprouts, but they're going in the ground today all the same.

Thanks for that Dan. Relieved to say the PFAs are now chitting like bilio, thanks to James's advice. As you say they'd probably have been fine sans chitting, but better safe than sorry and all that - it's my first year with this variety and I can't wait to try them!

I just googled "fir apple UK" and came up with your great blog!. They always been my favourite potato. We used to have them when we went down to Winchester to my partners parents. They grew fantastically down there, but tried them last year in Manchester and had no luck. Willing to give it another go this year. Anyway bought some today (rather late) and was going to plant them straightaway, but thought I would try and chit for a while. Any ideas about the soil or anything that it likely to help succeed this time?